Full Auto In The Uk (again)

[[RPPB] Neil]

Firearms law has been updated this year with the new Anti Social Behaviour Act 2003, which came into force this year. Paintball markers are not specifically mentioned in the act but are coming to notice to police forces all over britain as they are the "new toy" used by youths commitiing criminal damage and assaults in town centres.

I'll keep this simple so please don't jump down my throat about it...

Full Auto, Burst, Ramping etc. - Any of these modes, regardless of how it has occcured, will take your marker from the recreational equipment category and place in straight into being an illegal firearm. Possesion in a public place will may well result in a prison sentence.

Muzzle velocity - The limit is about 12 ft/lb (I think!). this would exceed the capabilities of most markers so don't worry about it too much. And no i don't know how to work it out in f/ps.....!

Legal bodies are looking at Paintball closely at the moment and reallly we are just waiting for a case to go to court that involves a paintball marker so the legislation can be tested. The UKPSF keeps a close eye on all things legal and thier website has a lot of information on it.

The emphasis now is on responsibility. If the sport can be shown to take rsponsibility and put controls in place to make sure all players stay within the law then there will be no problems. If not, tougher laws will be passed to control any problems which could seriously hurt our pastime.

Please remember i have simplified this a lot, everything is open to interpretation.

 

[Dazdread]

I believe that the limit equates to 330 FPS

Maybe it is time to insist that all outlets are affiliated to the UKPSF in order to get guidelines and information diseminated in an orderly manner.

It would seem that to many of these people a marker is a marker is a marker and through ignorance or plane just not caring they are selling technically illegal equipment in the UK.

Most players will have to belong next year why not retailers ???

 

[JoseDominguez]

Yup, agreed mate, the basic facts are simple...... markers are only "exempt" and ignored as firearms if the follow strict rules......... less than 12 ft lbs, 330fps (legal, not tourney legal), one ball per pull and firing nothing but paintballs. Accidental "double balling" is permitted. Anything else is no longer "exempt" and goes straight back to being an illegal firearm. If it's not specifically mentioned in the act, then it's a gun and has to follow the same rules.

Why the hell sell "full auto" markers in the UK? no one will let you use them on site or tourney and other than that there is no legitimate way you should be firing a marker anyway......... so why sell them? This is the kind of thing that will go against us when the firearms act is revised.

And the ft lbs thing......... if you marker is firing at 300 fps with a 0.68 ball then it hits around 10.3 ft lbs...... well within the limits, gotta get to about 331 before you exceed twelve foot pounds.
The calculation is

Weight in grains times velocity squared divided by 450395(a fixed constant).

 

[stongle]

But a paintball gun only becomes subject to firearms legislation if the projectile crossed the 12ft/lb impact barrier. Using your logic re Full Auto, there would be a couple of thousand Airsofters doing porridge in this country if Full Auto was infact illegal?. Since a life-size replica of an M60 looks a tad more anti-social than an E-blade I'd imagine this may be the primary focus of the law. If FA is only illegal above the 12 ft/lps impact force or above 331 fps or indeed should be reclassed as a firearm, aren't you all barking up the wrong tree?

Shouldn't your focus not be anti-F/A but more keeping markers below the 12ft/lbs impact force. I'm confused as to why F/A is the great Satan, when it only applies to fire arms (or has Airsoft slipped through the net???)

I'm also curious (and I was asleep during GCSE Physics, got a C though), if the projectile is frangible, surely some of the impact force is dissipated on impact, no? if so surely that 12 ft/lbs is not breached at 331 fps. If that is the case then we should only shoot paint that is proven to break with relative ease. Cheap armour piercing paint used by many teams should be outlawed as this can cause both injury and inflect unnecessary pain. Why tournament don't insist on this I don't know.

I'm all for keeping paintball legal and safe in the UK, but surely there's more than one way to skin a cat. There's a lot of ill-considered idea's that if floated in public are likely to scare the living daylights out of the Home Office and likely end up with us being more rigorously restricted. If the penalty for discharging more than 1 ball per trigger ball is to do a bird, how do you deal with accidental trigger bounce? Please don't tell me you've never had a marker bounce on you, cos I know your talking rubbish. Even if just during set-up, you have still put yourself in contradiction of the law you advocate.

the best way for Paintball to be kept Legal is to:

Introduce a strict Velocity Cap (if we ever need to go that far)
Enforce a breakability test for Paint. If we can get to the point we are merely shooting a completely dissipating or frangible brittle shell most of our problems go away.

 

[Azz3h]

Most people test paint before they fire it anyway - dropping on concrete from 6ft or whatever - should last around 8 bounces before its too hard is it?

Airsoft weaponry doesn't even classify as an air weapon due to the weight of the pellet and so the relatively low energy of a pellet compared to a pball so I've been told.

 

[[RPPB] Neil]

Airsoft weaponry doesn't even classify as an air weapon due to the weight of the pellet and so the relatively low energy of a pellet compared to a pball so I've been told.

Perfectly correct sir....

And there are seperate laws involving replica firearms.

 

[stongle]

Yep, but since Paintballs and the impact force dosen't go over 12 ft/lbs, surely we're in the same boat???????

Your unclear. Be precise!

 

[Azz3h]

12ft.lbs is the limit for air weaponry - higher than that it qualifies as a firearm...

However to count as an air weapon like a marker it must be over a certain muzzle energy - not quite sure what it is - but anything below that energy doesn't count as an air gun. (like airsoft guns)
This means that airsofters are shooting toys

 

[stongle]

Originally posted by Azz3h
Most people test paint before they fire it anyway - dropping on concrete from 6ft or whatever - should last around 8 bounces before its too hard is it?

And I think we can be a little more precise than that. Paints such as Hellfire, Ultimate Evil etc are much more brittle than others i could care to mention at the cheaper end of the scale. It's these paints which tend to do the damge not the top end breaking ones.

I came back from a recent event where I was shoot to pieces and was black n blue from playing Novice teams. Compare that to hardly any welts when playing X-Ball against quality opposition you gotta start to wonder.

 

[Ben Frain]

I'm with stongle on that - certainly in tournaments, there should be some insistence that only certain paints are allowed. There is some cheap paint out (which besides staining the be jesus out of everyone's kit) there that's almost armour piercing. You might not get pulled because it bounces right off put how can you run the flag in when your leg won't work anymore!